The song begins here<
Walking, walking<I feel the stretch lengthen my calves as I pick up speed, welcoming the slight pain as proof of effort. I experiment with striding according to the beat of the
music<its dark out, no-one around<I always just assume I am safe out at night. It was my daughter who asked me if I should go out at night? I hesitated a bit, realising I hadn’t thought about safety. I like the cover of night, even like not wearing my glasses as it renders everything misty and indistinct, leaves me space to concentrate on the music, letting my thoughts whisper on<
Walking is a different experience in the mornings<I am more focussed on walking fast but I like looking at everything, taking in the trees, mist on the lake, the dark water black and still under the paperbarks, ducks and other water fowl drifting slowly out as the day gets lighter.
I always walk west first towards the sea and face the sun rising on the way back to the house, get to the top of the rise where there is a small clearing, pause the iPhone App tracking my efforts and stand to feel the sun on my face when I can<taking it all
in<bringing the world into me<I like starting the walk in the dark in winter, three layers on with a beanie and gloves, cold and not cold at the same time. Summer is a different experience. I drive to the beach with the sun just up and walk on the sand near the shore, waiting for the beach to be lit with sunshine over the sand dunes. Walking in and out of shadow and light offers a beautiful poetry to the experience of water flowing along my feet; feet that become brown over the long slow summer, just with that small bit of exposure. Night walking is about something else, covered in darkness, miming along with a song, more introspective, inward looking, found I can even cry a little when I need to, release feelings, smile to myself, enjoy the solitude<And the thinking is different too in the night<back and forth my attention wanders from the sound of the music, the beat, and on over work, study, family, people, relationships, fragments of conversations, things to do, back to the music<often I come out of a reverie to find I am moving to the rhythm of the music<walking through pools of darkness and light with the street lights a pale orange. A reversal from the mornings in summer on the beach<
Morning walks are about processing things, making up to-do-lists, bringing mind, body and purpose together. I often find myself concentrating too on how I feel in my arms, shoulders, neck, down my back and through the legs<shaking off sleep, dreams, worries<getting ready for another day<blood moving, picking up speed, faster thinking<and it’s here that I do much of my<
<thinking about my thesis, sorting out problems with the analysis, asking myself questions, acting devil’s advocate, humbugging myself about my cheek in attempting to do a PhD at all, or indeed whatever new idea I have had about the research. The latest thing I have been considering is the question of why I am using a musical metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) for the thesis. And running alongside this question I have been turning over the issue of embodiment in qualitative research (Birk, 2013; Ellingson, 2006). Such a cognitive subject this topic of mine: reflective practice. So I began to think where is the body in it all? I found myself asking why music, why not some other metaphor<like the one I used in the original
autoethnography about place and country (Read, 2000; Watts, 2001)? Why this metaphor< especially when I have to learn about the production of music? I mean what is a note and how does this relate to a chord? Is it another elaborate exercise in writing avoidance (very possibly)? Could I pick a harder road, not being any kind of musician myself, not even knowing enough to ask sensible questions of people I know who do make music<
<and it comes to me as I pound along to the song Timber (Pitbull (Feat. Ke$ha), 2013) that the two are linked,
embodiment and music,
not just for others who use their bodies to study or make music (Bartlett & Ellis, 2009; Webber, 2009); or who write about illness (Birk, 2013) or grief (Lee, 2006)
or even those who make music and research too (Carless & Douglas, 2009) but also for me<
I only recently took up walking in a bid for sanity. Music was part of a rapprochement between me and the parts of me I had been ignoring for most of my adult life. Walking was hard at first. It brought to consciousness so many feelings of being at odds with myself. That there existed a me who was dragging my/our body up and down the roads around the house, and that part of me was kicking and screaming on the inside, while other parts geared up to meet the challenge; a gauntlet barely thrown down. And I<
<didn’t want to hear my own heavy breathing. I felt and heard it like an accusing chorus; an indictment of neglect at my failure to maintain a fit body, to keep my body trim, evidence of my lack of self-control and will. Carrying this shame I discovered and the breathing stood as a symbol of my shame for being this way<that and the feeling of
hesitation in stepping out onto something (will my legs support me, will my knees or ankles give way, will I fall?)<unable to risk anything in case the body lets me down<as though I had no part to play in its neglect<my laboured breathing felt like a failure of character<
but which part of me failed? my body or was it me?
This was less a chorus and more a backbeat lying under the other personal songs forming a playlist across my experience<
<so the me that wanted to feel better decided that the me interfering with this needed a bit of a talking to<so I took us all off to a hypnotherapist. I asked the hypnotherapist to explain
the problem to that part of me that was complaining. I asked her to gently request the body- me to remember how to walk, run and move as it was meant to as I was sure the memory was still contained within my tissues and muscles (Damasio, 2011; Hunt & Sampson, 2006). She added a step of her own. She asked all parties to remember they are one and that no accusations about failures of character and neglect were any longer relevant. These must be left behind us all on the beach where this conversation between us all took place
(figuratively speaking).
On the way home the CD in the car started on I can’t stand the rain by Angeline Ball74. I put it
on repeat as it fitted perfectly. I took the road inland instead of the highway driving slowly. This road weaves through low-lying forest and coastline coming out at places right on the beach, and then winds back through farmland and forest. I stopped the car to look out over the ocean with the song playing in the background. I heard the music, really heard it. The continual backbeat playing in my head was silent for the first time since I could remember< I would like to say that it was all good after that<walking wise, but no<I still panicked for a while after if I heard my own breathing. Stairs of any kind represented an exquisite torture. But a delightful gift from my daughter of a playlist with old favourites and some new music provided another turning point<the music helped keep the reluctant-me busy while the other-me got on remembering how to walk easily, mindfully, joyfully, eventually even a slow jog<
start the playlist, begin walking,
after a minute or so assume the stance for jogging,
using the beat to structure the pace and distract –reluctant-me by directing attention to the song
body-me did the rest< once I got out of the way<
<it came to me one day sometime later that both parts of me had begun acting together – a new backbeat had emerged...
along with a metaphor and possible way to consider the journey into
my experience of
learning reflective practice
74 Song written by Ann Peebles, Don Bryant and Bernard Mitchell (Peebles, Bryant, & Miller, 1973) and included
Bridge
Jackson, borrowing from Foucault (1990, cited in 2009, p. 165), suggests an important question to consider particularly in relation to the use of voice in qualitative inquiry. She asks ‚< what am I doing when I speak of this present?‛ This question is meant to ‚fashion a different way of questioning the present‛ (Jackson, 2009, p. 165). Indeed Jackson uses this question to consider the kinds of subjectivity made possible through speaking by looking at an account from an interview with ‘Amelia’ conducted within a research study about which she does not comment in much detail. The piece is utilised to illustrate and open a
discussion about the way in which power/knowledge relations are made visible through the act of speaking. It seemed from this discussion by Jackson that the issue turned on what kind of account ‘Amelia’ wanted to present when asked to consider her interview transcript after the interview was returned to her. Jackson’s account of this raised issues for my
presentation of this autoethnography. What kind of account do I want to present and what power/relations will this account make visible? Thus I opened the autoethnography placing the matter at hand within the present by considering the use of metaphor within the account as well as in the thesis more generally. Here I sought to present the intersection of my own biography with the presentation of this part of the study. I think of it as a moment to turn and look at the issue of learning and teaching reflective practice. It also signals that there is no past that is free from a reflexive moment of re-imagination within this account.
Thus in considering this issue of what account to present I take up the problem of how the enlightenment ideal, as a reflective questioning of the issue, simultaneously works to make the present possible (Foucault & Rabinow, 1984). This does place the autoethnographic study itself in a hall of mirrors with regard to the topic. Use of reflexive tools and techniques in order to consider learning reflective practice may be an absurdity (Coleman, A, personal communication, 24th April 2009). There is a small wriggle space that I intend to use and this
involves a recognition that this account is not an objective account but instead it aims to be one that is truthful (Medford, 2006). Not giving an objective account here means I am not speaking from above or outside power/knowledge relations. Rather, through the very act of speaking/writing this account I am doing the work of making them visible. This should trouble any sense that this autoethnographic account of my learning reflective practice
occurred as a linear, structured, attained-once-and-for-all process. I offer the account obliquely and through the subjectivity which make the ‚<social relations, cultural
meanings, and histories<assembled together to create truths< [through a rendition of+<a desiring voice, a discursive voice, a performative voice‛ (Jackson, 2009, p. 172), which represent various positions and subjectivities.